“We know that he will not show himself to Envoy and Packer after nine days of letting the Blind Spot drive him crazy and ruin his hairdo. You'll have forty minutes to make me beautiful.”
“Stet. What next? Decelerate for a week. Drop the boat somewhere, maybe in the asteroids, without changing course. The Home asteroid belt is fairly narrow. Still plenty of room to hide.
“They'll bring you aboard ship just before they drop the boat. Because you're dangerous. Thanks.” He'd dialed me up a handmeal. “You're dangerous, so they'll keep you in free fall until the last minute. If we're wrong about that, we could get caught by surprise.”
“Bring me aboard? How does that work? Order Envoy and Packer to stun me and pull me through the small lock? We can't do that. They're dead!”
“Lure the technology officer in here.”
“How?”
“Don't know. Make up a story. Let's just get through dropout without getting caught.”
A recording spoke. A computer whined, “Dominant Ones, we have returned to the universe. Be patient for star positions.”
Paradoxical started the curtain retracting. Stars emerged. I went to the kitchen wall and dialed up what we needed.
The recording reeled off a location based on some easy-to-find stars and clusters. Paradoxical listened intently. “Home system,” he said. “We will use the telescope to find better data. Can you do that alone?”
“Yah.” We'd practiced. In free fall we were still a bit awkward, but I mixed the basic makeup, then added char to a smaller batch. A bit more? All? Ready. “You do the eyebrows, Doc.”
“First I will finish this task.”
Fly-By-Night held still while I rubbed the food mixture into his facial fur. Paradoxical said, “Graviton wake indicates a second ship.”
“Damn!” Fly-By-Night snarled. I flung myself backward; my seat web caught me. Paradoxical said, “We find nothing in visible light.”
“Don't move your mouth. Aw, Fly-By-Night!” He was in an all-out snarl, trying to talk and failing. Drool made a darker runnel. “If Meebrlee-Riit saw that he wouldn't care who you are. Lose the teeth!”
Fly-By-Night relaxed his mouth. “Your extra week is down the toilet, Mart. They're making pickup here and now.”
The makeup had stayed liquid. “Paradoxical, give him eyebrows.” I brushed out the drool, then settled myself out of camera range. They'd given me the flight controls. Paradoxical on astrogation, Fly-By-Night on weapons.
Paradoxical finished his makeup work and moved out of camera range, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I asked, “Shall we talk? Is this second ship just an escort?”
“No. Why make Sraff-Zisht conspicuous? Transfer the telepath, then move on to Home. This new ship runs to some outer world, or to Kzin itself—” Meebrlee-Riit popped up bigger than life and fourteen minutes early. He demanded, “Envoy, is the telepath well?”
Fly-By-Night flinched, then cringed. “The telepath is healthy, Dominant One. I judge that he is not in his right mind.”
“The Jotok? Yourself? Where is Packer?”
“The Jotok amuses themself with a computer. I will welcome medical attention. Packer… Dominant One… Packer looked on hyperspace.”
“He knew better!”
“Envoy” recoiled, then visibly pulled himself together. “Soon or late, Dominant One, every Hero looks. Wealth and a name and the infinite future, if he has sisters and daughters, if he can stay sane. Packer did not. He hides in the waterfall when I let him. Set him in a hunting park soon or he will die.”
“That will not be our task. Leap For Life will be here soon. Transfer the boat to Leap For Life. Haste! No need to take Telepath out of his vacuum refuge. You will be relieved aboard Leap For Life.”
“Yes, Dominant One!”
“Packer must guard the telepath. The telepath will attack now if ever.”
“Yes—”
Meebrlee-Riit was gone.
“We have it!” Paradoxical projected what he was seeing against the cannon casing.
Still distant, backlit by Apollo, Home's sun, a sphere nestled in a glowing arc of gamma ray shield, its black skin broken by holes and projections and tiny windows. Dots-and-commas script glowed brilliant orange. “We find heavy graviton wake. That ship is decelerating hard.”
“Built in this century,” Fly-By-Night said.
Sraff-Zisht dropped us free.
This was not much of a puzzle. I spun the boat, aimed at Leap For Life and said, “Shoot.”
My hair stirred. Fly-By-Night's fur stood up and rippled. He said, “Done. Doc?”
“The graviton wake is gone. You burned out its thrusters.”
I boosted us to put Sraff-Zisht between us and Leap For Life. Leap For Life had the weapons, after all. I set our gun on Sraff-Zisht and said, “Again.”
“Done. I burned out something.”
“Graviton flare,” Paradoxical said, just as Sraff-Zisht vanished. “Meebrlee-Riit must have tried to return to hyperspace,” Fly-By-Night said. “We burned out the hyperdrive. But he still has thrusters!”
I rotated the boat to focus the gun on the immobilized Leap For Life. “Projectiles. Shoot it to bits.”
Fly-By-Night punched something. We heard the weapon adjusting, but he didn't shoot.
“Why?” I screamed, “They've got all the weapons, our shield has flown away—”
“Stet.” The boat's lone weapon roared. It was right in the middle of the cabin/cargo hold. The noise was amazing. The boat recoiled: cabin gravity lurched to compensate. Leap For Life jittered and came apart in shreds.
“—And they don't have the hostages! And now it's one less tanj thing to worry about.”
“Stet, stet, I understand!”
Paradoxical said, “We win.”
We looked at the Jotok. He said, “We may report all that has happened, now, via laser broadcast to Home. We fly the boat to Home with our proofs. The law of Home can arrange to retrieve Odysseus. With his hyperdrive burned out, Meebrlee-Riit is trapped in Home system. In the full glare of publicity he must follow the Covenants. He may trade his hostages for some other consideration such as amnesty, but they must be returned. Stet?”
“He's still got my family! But I think we can turn on the cabin futzy gravity now, if you don't mind—” I stopped because Meebrlee-Riit, greatly magnified, was facing Fly-By-Night.
“Some such consideration,” he mimicked us. “You look stupid, Telepath, covered with food. Only one consideration can capture my interest! Read my mind if you doubt me. Release my entourage and surrender! The hostages for yourself!” Fly-By-Night's claw moved. No result showed except for Meebrlee-Riit's widening eyes, but Fly-By-Night had given him a contracted view. He was seeing all of us. “Lies! You killed my Heroes? Eeeeerg!” A hair-lifting snarl as Fly-By-Night lifted Packer's ear into view.
It seemed the right moment. I showed Envoy's surviving ear. “We had to use the other.”
“Martin Wallace Graynor, you may buy back your hostages and your life by putting the telepath into my hands!”
It began to seem that Meebrlee-Riit was mad. I asked, “Must I subdue him first?” A killing gape was my answer. I asked, “And where would you take him then, with no hyperdrive?”
“Not your concern.”
“We're going to call for help now. Over the next few hours all of Home system is going to know you're here. A civilized solar system seethes with telescopes. If you have allies in the asteroids, you can't go to them. You'd only point them out to the Home Rule.”
“What if you never make that broadcast, LE Graynor? And I can… thaw… sss.” He'd had a notion. He stepped out of range. Ducked back and fisheyed the view to show his whole cabin. The other Kzin, Tech, was at his workstation, watching.